Use Open Source? Then You're a Pirate! 650
superapecommando writes "There's a fantastic little story in the Guardian today that says a US lobby group is trying to get the US government to consider open source as the equivalent to piracy. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), an umbrella group for American publishing, software, film, television and music associations, has asked the US Trade Representative (USTR) to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil, and India for its 'Special 301 watchlist' because they encourage the use of open source software. A Special 301, according to Guardian's Bobbie Johnson is: 'a report that examines the "adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights" around the planet — effectively the list of countries that the US government considers enemies of capitalism. It often gets wheeled out as a form of trading pressure — often around pharmaceuticals and counterfeited goods — to try and force governments to change their behaviors.'"
Re:if everyone ignored the quacks... (Score:4, Informative)
Who heads the lobby group...? (Score:3, Informative)
I preferred to called a privateer...
Re:I thought open source was communism? (Score:3, Informative)
OS = Operating System, actually. You want OSS or FOSS, though the F is almost always redundant.
OSS != communism, certainly, but it is a form of socialism. It's like sharing, it's voluntary so it's not just no big deal, it's friggin awesome. It's the coersive forms of socialism that can be scary and nasty.
As for this IIPA group, they are either incredibly ignorant (possible, but if so it must be by choice), or they just want to manipulate the system to their advantage - which is probably the case.
As usual, the headline is flawed. (Score:5, Informative)
A few notes:
On the article, the main qualm for the author of the main article seems to be with Indonesia's inclusion into the Special 301 list. For those that didn't read the article but don't know what that list is, the Special 301 list monitors countries that are known for infringing IP rights on a wide-scale (or at least that's the jist I got from reading the articles).
If one reads at least the Executive Summary for Indonesia's report, it is made pretty clear that the analyzed paragraph is not the reason why Indonesia was included on that list. Their issues are, like many second- and third-world countries, much more far-reaching that.
Firstly, it is important to recognize that these are not governmental mandates. These are requests. While there is some legitimacy in claiming that the exclusive use of (free and) open-source software imbalances the playing field for companies looking to make a profit, it is very weak. Nobody complained when Germany or France switched over to OpenDocument format and Linux on government desktops, even though that both of those actions, according to the IIPA, would be guilty of the same thing. It should be a government's decision to determine whether they want to adopt a purely free and open-source computing environment; in fact, it is actually a pretty good decision for them since it would help them deter privacy at-home (which is ultimately what these folks want) while saving them massive dollars. I highly doubt that this will be followed through; too many questions would be raised.
Secondly, one the real reasons why Indonesia is on that list is clearly stated if one reads a bit further down into the report. They are reported as ranking in the world's top 12 countries for business software piracy. That more than likely means they get lots and lots of copies of Office from TPB or wherever. I'm not against piracy, but that would definitely be a legitimate cause for landing up on that list. They are also reported to have lots of other issues with illegal copying/selling/et al.
I am not against piracy (at least on a personal level), but I am against sensational journalism that only blows up a few pixels out of the bigger picture instead of looking at the whole image. This is hardly an attack on open-source; it's just a "thing they noticed."
Re:if everyone ignored the quacks... (Score:5, Informative)
Bzzz.
Bad article summary. It doesn't make you a "pirate" but it does make you a Special 301 Suspect who may have tendencies towards piracy (oh no). It's kinda similar to police profiling black drivers as potential criminals, except minus the racial overtones.
I wonder why Russia is not on this list? They encourage open source software as the preferred option for schools. Maybe we don't want to annoy our new ally.
Re:if everyone ignored the quacks... (Score:2, Informative)
I wonder why Russia is not on this list?
Already there. High priority, in fact.
Socialism, communism, blah blah blah (Score:4, Informative)
You know there is such a thing as market socialism [wikipedia.org], right?
People get the concepts of capitalism, free markets, socialism, and communism far too confused.
So if we presume that a hunk of information like software constitutes a form of capital, then open source of any variety most definitely is socialist (it's seeking to distribute said capital broadly instead of concentrating it in the hands of a few), and thus not capitalist in the loose sense, but most certainly not communist in the modern sense (its distribution is anything but centrally controlled), and thus it is most certainly compatible with three free-market.
Of course those like me who deny the legitimacy of copyright entirely (thus undermining the premise that something like software constitutes capital) would look like communists in the original sense to those who disagree, but we in turn see the very presumption of copyright to be contrary to the free market on scarce physical goods (by legislating what can and cannot be done with peoples' own equipment), which certainly takes precedent over the market on infinitely reproducible intangible goods.
Re:The IIPA is genuinely scary though. (Score:3, Informative)
It isn't exactly a secrete that Microsoft would rather you pirate their software than use Linux, so yeah the BSA probably shares that opinion.
The official policy at Microsoft is that as long as you're using their product, they'll find a way to make you pay eventually.
Re:if everyone ignored the quacks... (Score:1, Informative)
The other good news is that being a pirate allows you to do your part in combating global warming
Strange as it might seems, this is very true as you avoid increasing the pollution caused by disk production plants, cargo transport, the DRM load on your system and the extra processing your might have to do to get the product working with the system of your selection. Being a pirate is the responsible choice.
Re:If you use open source, you're a pirate... (Score:3, Informative)
You mean scum of the earth as in people driven away from their fishing grounds by big multinationals fishing emptying their fish grounds and polluting their sea with poison waste? Yeah real scum!!
THIS is why you comment on proposed regulations (Score:3, Informative)
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/09/2242230/Submit-Your-Comments-About-ACTA [slashdot.org]
This is exactly why comments on proposed regulations are important. The IIPA's comments have been submitted, and now *must* be considered (though of course it can be dismissed) by the regulatory body. The Section 301 review actions were exactly what that period of comment was for.
If you didn't get a comment in on the deadline, you missed your chance to present an opposing voice that also *must* be considered.
Re:if everyone ignored the quacks... (Score:3, Informative)
Except in practice, using FOSS in your business has nothing to do with Linus or Stallman.
"Capitalism is not offering to perform a service that people could do for themselves."
I pay a FOSS provider, like Red Hat, to provide a service that I cannot do myself. I could care less what the dictators of certain FOSS projects do with those projects, as long as my service provider, say Red Hat, continues to provide me for services and solutions that I desire.
If tomorrow Linus altered the course of Linux by doing something drastic to the kernel, on a whim like a Dictator, I wouldn't care, as long as Red Hat continued to provide a type of Linux that met my needs.
"To make an analogy, if a man has two sons, and he gives one son his plow, and the other his sword, he dictates their fate by his choice of gift."
Yet, the son handed the sword, (like all of us handed linux), could choose not to wield the sword himself, and instead pay for mercenaries to do it for him. Or, and more importantly, he could pay for a blacksmith (Red Hat) to melt the sword down into some form that he more desired.
Misleading summary (Score:4, Informative)
The article summary (and the Guardian articles) mis-state that countries are being cited "because they encourage the use of open source software." In fact, in reading IIPA's Special 301 recommendations for Indonesia [iipa.com] and Brasil [iipa.com], those countries are being cited because they are trying to require by law the use of open source (in government usage). That's very different from simply encouraging FOSS use as the summary suggests.
What would one expect the position of an intellectual property trade organization to be regarding countries that are trying to outlaw the use of commercial intellectual property?
Further, as indicated in the linked briefs, the issue of open source treatment is only a small one in the context of much larger intellectual property issues. To suggest that countries would be put on a watchlist simply "because they encourage the use of open source software" is to ignore the many other and weightier intellectual property concerns that have nothing to do with open source software. (Just because we're an open source community doesn't mean everything is an open source issue.)
There's nothing significant here.
Re:The IIPA is genuinely scary though. (Score:3, Informative)
I've lived in Thailand for five of the last ten years, and this part of the world is famous for having no real comprehension of copyright. Years ago, the government here tried to move toward FOSS in a bid to reduce piracy and improve international relations.
MS came in and offered to legitimize all pirated copies of (IIRC) Win98 and give the government an absurd price on WinXP for its offices, based on an exclusive contract. FOSS wasn't allowed.
So yeah, MS would rather take a short-term loss than have people switch to another platform.
Re:if everyone ignored the quacks... (Score:1, Informative)
Well, FOSS is actually capitalism in all its glory, since it is easier to realize full (market) efficiency. With FOSS, in principle there is perfect information on both sides (consumer and producer), and AFAIK there are no fixed costs apart from having to learn a particular code base for a particular product.
It just happens so that a lot of the time the value of the component called "cost" or "price" or "money" is of value zero. This does not mean that the work is valueless: on the contrary, the value of the software can be very high. It just happens so that the consumer acquires more of this economic profit, rather than transferring it to the producer in the form of a monetary "profit margin". There is no economic loss where the consumer realizes less utility than he could have. FOSS is a good way of developing efficient markets. (Emphasis deliberate.)